weekly hansard - Queensland Parliament - Queensland Government

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23 Aug 2005 Matters of Public Interest 2567 This is a government that is not about serious action. This is a government that only talks about listening and when it comes to the basics nothing ever changes. The people of Redcliffe and Chatsworth said on the weekend that they want things to change. They are sick and tired of this rambling rubbish from a person who wobbles around Queensland and says that he is going to fix all of these things. They have seen it before. Those people are not going to take any notice. Home and Community Care Awareness Week; Seniors Week Mrs MILLER (Bundamba—ALP) (11.49 am): Mr Speaker— Mr Seeney: How was the preselection? Mrs MILLER: Very well, thank you. Mr Seeney: How are the numbers? Mrs MILLER: Very good. Mr Speaker, this week marks two important awareness events for celebrations and promotion for Home and Community Care Awareness Week and also Seniors Week. The Home and Community Care Awareness Week—or HACC Awareness Week, as it is known— highlights the crucial work that our HACC service providers carry out on a daily basis. The Home and Community Care—HACC—program is a joint Australian state and territory government initiative that operates under the Home and Community Care Act 1985 and the Home and Community Care Amending Agreement 1999. The primary purpose of the Home and Community Care program is to purchase basic support and maintenance services to support older, frail and younger people with moderate, severe or profound disabilities and their carers. The program also recognises that within the overall HACC target population there are several special needs groups that find it more difficult than most to access services. These groups include people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, people living with dementia, financially disadvantaged people, and people living in remote and isolated areas. Most importantly, these services are designed to support HACC eligible clients to remain in their own homes for as long as possible and avoid premature or inappropriate admission to residential care. The program subsidises, rather than necessarily meeting, the full cost of these services. Queensland Health manages the Queensland HACC program. It receives 64.4 per cent of the funding from the Commonwealth, and the Queensland government contributes 35.36 per cent of funding. The program subsidises the cost of a broad range of direct services delivered in communities across the state, all of which continue to experience a high and growing level of demand. In addition, the program supports a range of indirect projects and initiatives to support eligible people in the community. The vast range of direct, home and community care services include domestic assistance, social support, personal care, home nursing care, meals, centre based day care, respite care, transport, allied health care, home maintenance, home modification, counselling and support, and information and advocacy. Over 800 separate providers deliver services across the state and include large providers such as Blue Care and Ozcare. Other providers are very small and are often volunteer based services such as Meals on Wheels. I would particularly like to recognise my local Meals on Wheels service, which is the Woogaroo service based at Redbank. The friendships formed through the HACC service providers are sometimes the only contact our older generation has with the community. The service providers often take on many additional roles in providing support to those residing alone or caring for their partner. A friendly face and a kind word or two from Meals on Wheels volunteers can make all the difference in a person’s life. The tireless and crucial services that Home and Community Care providers and volunteers undertake on a daily basis deserve the highest level of praise for their dedication and passion in helping people. These wonderful people are to be congratulated. I urge all members of the House to take the time in Home and Community Care Awareness Week to visit, meet and become involved with their local HACC providers and volunteers. As part of Seniors Week, aged care is highlighted as integral in our seniors’ quality of life and health. While the vast events around the state for Seniors Week are being celebrated, many of our cherished seniors are unwell and in care. Dedicated staff, carers and volunteers, including HACC providers, are sometimes the only link that many seniors have to the community, particularly when they are unwell. For example, these volunteers provide random acts of kindness at day respite centres that our older generation attend on a daily basis for interaction with other people in similar situations. I have one of these centres at the Redbank Day Respite Centre, and quite often I have morning tea with the senior citizens. Many of the organised events for this week are an opportunity for our seniors to socialise, celebrate and feel appreciated for their contributions, volunteering, caring, wisdom, knowledge and love that they provide to their families, friends and others. Today I will be having lunch with the National Seniors of Redbank and Goodna at the Wolston Park Golf Club, and I hope to celebrate with them our Seniors Week. Their special week is very important in our local community, and it is important right
2568 Matters of Public Interest 23 Aug 2005 across Queensland. I encourage all people to join in, have some fun, laughter and enjoyment with our seniors. I hope that our seniors will obviously have good health and improve in their health outcomes. As a person who is only three years away from being a senior, I hope that, along with my colleagues, we will have a long and healthy retirement hopefully free of ailments, disease and disability. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Fouras): Order! Before calling the member for Algester, I say that I am already a senior so I can absolutely understand what you are saying. The member for Algester. International Conference on Engaging Communities Ms STRUTHERS (Algester—ALP) (11.54 am): Last week I was pleased to speak at the Queensland government and United Nations first International Conference on Engaging Communities at the Brisbane convention centre. I would like to begin by congratulating the organisers of this event, particularly the Department of Communities and the organising committee. It was a huge success. It was an amazing conference with more than 1,800 delegates from all over the world including a very sizable contingent from Asia, India, Sri Lanka and other such countries. It was great to see so many people coming to this first international event. What struck me was that many people from all over the world were discussing ways in which citizens can be more actively involved in democracy and in decision making, but many millions of people from those countries do not even have a decent roof over their head. They do not even have decent access to water or food. They do not have jobs and incomes. There were lots of differing needs discussed because in Queensland we have a Department of Communities and we have a Community Engagement Division. We have high-level processes for consultation and engagement that are the envy of many overseas people. It is very hard to reconcile where we are at with our processes and where other countries are at, with many of them being so oppressed. In Zimbabwae and other countries, for instance, the people do not have a say in government at all. That government uses violence to stop people from voting. The differences are very stark. But it is a great credit to the Queensland government and the Department of Communities that we have very solid processes in place. We have one of the most advanced and stable democracies in the entire world. As the Premier has outlined in this parliament before, we have had over 31,000 people attend our community cabinet meetings. That is a brilliant concept. The response by participants at the community engagement conference to this concept was amazing. They could not believe that leaders of the government, including the Premier, would face the music in the way that they do every four to six weeks in a public forum of that nature. Where people from other countries do not even get to say at all—where they are violently oppressed from having a say—they found these processes so amazing and something they would probably never dream of in their own lifetime. They were in awe of our regional forums and all those sorts of activities that we have here such as the e-democracy processes. Twenty-two thousand people have signed e-petitions. Eight thousand people attended the first regional parliamentary sitting in Townsville in September 2000, and we are all very confident that a similar number of people will attend the upcoming Rockhampton parliamentary sitting. Again that is an opportunity for people in regional areas in Queensland to meet and greet members, to have a very direct say and to have an opportunity to talk with the Premier, the ministers and other members of the government. Importantly, our strategies ensure that all people from all walks of life have an opportunity to have their say, including people who come from marginalised and disadvantaged backgrounds. Today Queenslanders have unprecedented access to their government and ministers. It was just amazing to see the differences in governments. In fact, I felt very proud of what we are achieving here. I know there are always problems. No government ever reaches out in the way that all people would like, and no government makes decisions that all people would like because people differ in their own views, but we certainly have processes for consultation and processes for engagement that are the envy of the world. One of the greatest challenges though, and what I spoke about, was the need for people to actually participate actively in political processes including political parties. In Australia and throughout the world, party membership has declined. For instance, in the sixties it stood at about four per cent of the population in Australia. This has declined to two per cent. That is the common trend across OECD countries. The greatest challenge is getting young people involved. A survey of young people in 1987 found that those aged 18 to 24 said that they had not much or no interest in politics. In 2000 that figure had risen to more than 50 per cent. I look forward to the findings of the parliamentary inquiry that we are having into how we can all better engage with young people. These findings will be very important because it is certainly young people’s voices we need to hear more of, and it is young people’s voices that need to be included in the decision making. We certainly have a lot of work to do in that regard.
Page 1 and 2: PROOF ISSN 1322-0330 WEEKLY HANSARD
Page 3 and 4: Table of Contents — Tuesday, 23 A
Page 5 and 6: 2536 Papers 23 Aug 2005 PAPERS PAPE
Page 7 and 8: 2538 Ministerial Statement 23 Aug 2
Page 19 and 20: 2550 Scrutiny of Legislation Commit
Page 21 and 22: 2552 Private Members’ Statements
Page 23 and 24: 2554 Questions Without Notice 23 Au
Page 33 and 34: 2564 Members’ Ethics and Parliame
Page 35: 2566 Matters of Public Interest 23
Page 39 and 40: 2570 Matters of Public Interest 23
Page 45 and 46: 2576 Constitutional and Other Legis
Page 47 and 48: 2578 Transport Legislation Amendmen
Page 49 and 50: 2580 Transport Legislation Amendmen
Page 51 and 52: 2582 Housing Legislation Amendment
Page 53 and 54: 2584 Education (Queensland College
Page 55 and 56: 2586 Succession Amendment Bill 23 A
Page 57 and 58: 2588 Succession Amendment Bill 23 A
Page 59 and 60: 2590 Queensland Competition Authori
Page 69 and 70: 2600 Racing Venues Development Amen
Page 81 and 82: 2612 Plumbing and Drainage and Othe
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2618 Plumbing and Drainage and Othe
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2630 Child Safety Legislation Amend
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2642 Adjournment 23 Aug 2005 One pa
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2644 Adjournment 23 Aug 2005 years.
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2646 Adjournment 23 Aug 2005 Finall
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